


both hungry and awake

by sinistercacophony



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Gen, Haunted Houses, Horror, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Self-Harm, this is not a happy story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:02:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27304555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinistercacophony/pseuds/sinistercacophony
Summary: The house looks wrong.Andrew cannot explain why. It is just an old house, paint peeling from its columns, shingles loose on the roof, vines crawling up its sides like sickly verdant veins. But it sits wrong in the landscape, some dimension or another making it seem awkward, ajar, as if it were dropped there by some uncaring hand and left to collapse in on itself.Andrew can relate.
Relationships: Neil Josten & Andrew Minyard
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28





	both hungry and awake

**Author's Note:**

> this was heavily inspired by the both haunting of hill house and the video game 'anatomy'. i wanted to write a horror thing for halloween and then it took a significantly darker turn than i was expecting it to. 
> 
> this is not a happy story with a happy ending so if you don't like horror or ambiguity i would recommend not reading. andrew is 14 and living with drake and cass and pretty much every bad thing you can extrapolate from that happens. the scenes with drake cut off before getting explicit but andrew's self harm is fairly graphically described
> 
> also halfway through writing this i realized it was basically the same concept as bleeding out which is a fic none of you will have read bc i wrote it three years ago but it is nonetheless very funny that i keep coming back to this idea
> 
> the title is a quote pulled from anatomy

The house looks wrong. 

Andrew cannot explain why. It is just an old house, paint peeling from its columns, shingles loose on the roof, vines crawling up its sides like sickly verdant veins. But it sits wrong in the landscape, some dimension or another making it seem awkward, ajar, as if it were dropped there by some uncaring hand and left to collapse in on itself. 

Andrew can relate. 

He’s shocked out of his discomfort by the weight of a hand on his shoulder, heavy and overly familiar. 

“Well AJ, this looks like a nice old place we’re gonna be fixin’ up, huh?” 

It’s said casually, something one step-brother might say to another. Andrew sidesteps neatly, shrugging Drake’s hand off his shoulder and ducking his head. He mutters, “Yeah looks cool or whatever.” 

He’s not a kid. He is not afraid of some weird old house. He has worse things to be afraid of. 

“Alright kids let’s get a move on! We’ve got a lot of stuff to get unpacked today!” Cass comes up behind them, voice as cheery and optimistic as ever. She sets her hand on Andrew’s shoulder, right where Drake’s was resting moment’s before, before moving it up to ruffle Andrew’s hair. Andrew puts up with it. She does it because she cares. It’s fine. He doesn’t mind it, he tells himself.

Andrew still only has one bag's worth of stuff, but this time instead of a garbage bag, Cass bought him a nice canvas duffle bag. It is sturdy, the straps probably will not break anytime soon. As long as it does not get stolen it should last him a good long time. 

Cass and Drake are both moving up the driveway, Drake carrying both his own travel bag and his mother’s, because he’s polite like that or some shit. Andrew gives himself a moment of hesitation. The windows of the house are arched and dark. _They look like eyes,_ he thinks, _like they are watching._

A sliver of fear leaks down his spine, a singular chilly raindrop on an otherwise sunny day. 

Stupid. Stop being a pussy Andrew. 

So Andrew heaves his duffle bag higher and follows Cass and Drake up onto the porch, through the wide gape of the open double doors that make up the entrance to the house, and allows the house to swallow him whole. 

— 

The first day is not that bad. The movers had already put furniture in and generally dumped boxes where their labels said they were meant to go, so Cass just orders pizza and has them unpack parts of the kitchen before sending them off to their rooms. Drake’s is technically a guest bedroom but Cass claims that even though he doesn’t live with the Spears permanently he’s still her son so of course he gets his own room. 

Andrew doesn’t care what Drake does. He cares that his bedroom has a lock. He wonders if he can get away with locking it anytime he is alone. Probably not. Drake would probably catch on and make some concerned comment to Cass about Andrew spending too much time isolating himself and then Cass might try to get the locks removed. He will only use it if he really needs to, Andrew decides. Not so often that it seems suspicious. 

Drake had already threatened to tell Cass about the cutting the last time Andrew had tried to avoid hanging out with Drake one on one. If Cass knew about the cutting she might decide Andrew was too much trouble. He could not take that risk. So he has to be careful about doing things that upset Drake.

Andrew’s room is small and sparsely furnished. Maybe eight strides from one wall to the other. Not that Andrew’s strides are very long. Twin bed up against the wall, side table, dresser, desk. There is enough weak evening sunlight filtering in through the room that he leaves the light off as he enters. The walls are a dark off gray that makes Andrew think of gravestones and rotting concrete. It feels like they’re closing in on him. 

Andrew doesn’t bother to unpack his duffle bag, just dumps it in the lower drawer of the dresser. Cass had dumped a brand new set of sheets and blankets on Andrew right before he had gone upstairs. Black, she’d teased, because clearly he was going for an aesthetic. 

That’s fine with him. Black doesn’t stain. Makes his life easier. Less of a risk of Cass finding blood or— other stuff on them. 

He makes his bed haphazardly and flops down on it. It is well on the way to being truly dark now. He could play the gameboy color Cass got him as a fourteenth birthday present, but he’s tired and on edge and frankly disoriented from the move so he just curls up under the blankets with his back up against the wall and closes his eyes. His last thought before he drifts off is the distant hope that maybe Drake will decide to leave him alone tonight, given that it is their first night here. 

Of course he doesn’t. Andrew is startled into wakefulness by the click of a lock and the silhouette of Drake’s hulking figure in the doorway, barely illuminated by the moonlight filtering in from outside. 

“Hey AJ, hope I didn’t keep you waiting, baby.” 

Andrew keeps his eyes closed. Drake knows that Andrew wakes up the moment someone comes into his room, but it’s easier for Andrew to feign sleep than acknowledge what’s coming. 

“Mom’s on the first floor too, and I bet this old house doesn’t carry sound so well, so we don’t have to be as quiet as we usually are— isn’t that nice?” 

Drake always likes to talk so much. He would remind Andrew of some cartoon villain spelling out his evil plans— if cartoon villains were child rapists. Andrew does not think they are allowed to show that on TV.

The bed dips as Drake sits. Andrew is huddled as far in the corner as he can get, squeezed small and unnoticeable under the covers. 

Drake finds him anyway. Drake always finds him. A heavy hand lands on Andrew’s hip. 

Andrew pretends he does not exist for a little while. 

— 

Andrew cannot get away with showering at 2am. The plumbing screeches the moment he starts the shower, and he frantically turns it off. There is no way it will not wake Cass. Instead he has to use damp washcloths and hot water from the sink, clenching his teeth against the pain and trying not to sob. 

When he’s done he sits on the floor next to the toilet, staring at the wall. He doesn’t want to go back into his room, into that bed. His razors are still shoved in the bottom of his bag, hidden in the journal Cass got him when she’d officially adopted him. He picks at the scabs left over on his arms instead, until they are oozing and achy. It is not as good as actually cutting, but it feels better than doing nothing at all. 

He is so preoccupied with it that he almost does not hear it. 

There is someone outside the door. He locked it, he knows he did, but the creak of floorboards causes him to jerk up his head to double check. There’s a shadow just barely visible at the bottom threshold. He waits for Cass to call his name, or Drake maybe, back for more— or to make sure Andrew is doing a good enough job of not giving him away. 

But whoever it is does not say anything. They just— stand. And wait. 

Andrew doesn’t call out. If they want to know what he is doing they can ask. Nothing good ever comes from volunteering information. 

Nothing happens. Just as Andrew becomes convinced that the shadow is nothing more than a trick of the eyes and the floorboards simply shifted on their own, he hears another noise. 

It starts quiet but it gets louder. A scraping noise. Like someone dragging their nails over wood. Someone is scratching at the door. 

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Andrew is frozen. Andrew cannot move, his eyes transfixed on the door. 

It gets louder. 

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. 

_Drake is fucking with me,_ Andrew decides, _He wants me to freak out and go crying to Cass so he can claim he needs to stick around longer or something. This is the kind of fucked up thing he’d do._

_Right?_

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Louder. Louder. Louder. 

Andrew realizes he is crying. Weird. He has not cried in a very long time. At least not actual tears. But now they are running over his cheeks, dripping off his chin, silent and horrified. 

Andrew feels like he is sitting in the mouth of a very large predator, waiting for it to bite down. The fluorescent overhead lights of the bathroom make its out of date decor seem stark and menacing. He is brought back to getting out of the car, seeing the house for the first time, feeling— wrong. This house is wrong. 

The scratching stops. 

Andrew doesn’t realize that his dread had manifested into something that felt like actual pressure until it abruptly vanishes. He is startled into sucking in a breath he had not realized he’d been holding. 

The shadow at the base of the doorway is gone. Andrew is left gasping, tears still running down his face. 

_What the fuck. What the fuck was that?_

It must have been Drake. It had to be. It couldn’t have been anything else. 

Andrew scrubs at his face with the back of hand, wiping away the tears. He shouldn’t let Drake scare him like that. He’s just a creepy sadistic asshole. It doesn’t mean anything. 

Once he’s adequately cleaned up he turns to the door. He needs to go back to his room. He can’t let Cass find him in the bathroom in the morning, it’ll be too suspicious. 

All he needs to do is open the door, turn off the bathroom light, and walk down the hallway to his room. 

The dark hallway. To his dark room. 

Andrew is not afraid of the dark. He is not a child. He knows that monsters do not exist, or if they do they are far more human than the stories that get told to little kids would have you believe. 

Drake is gone now. All he has to do is open the door. Easy. Baby shit. A child could do it. Open the fucking door, Andrew. 

Andrew opens the door and flicks off the bathroom light as quickly as possible before bolting down the hallway. He doesn’t care if the sound of him running wakes Cass up. If she asks he’ll just say he went to the bathroom in the middle of the night and the dark scared him. Embarrassing, but Cass will not question it. 

Nothing grabs him in the hallway, or is waiting in the dark of his new room. He nearly slams the door behind him, only remembering at the last moment to soften the movement so it doesn’t make as much sound. 

He gets back into bed as quickly as possible, huddling under the covers, back against the wall like always. The sheets aren’t clean but his spares are in a box somewhere and he’s not going looking for shit in this weird fucking house in the dark. 

He thinks he won’t be able to get to sleep, adrenaline rushing through him in a torrent, but just as suddenly as it came, it vanishes, and Andrew eyes are shutting in exhaustion before he even realizes what’s happening. 

He dreams of hands, and mouths full of jagged teeth, and ice blue eyes watching him from the dark. 

— 

The next week is uneventful. They unpack more boxes. Andrew plays his gameboy. Andrew plays board games with Cass. Drake visits him at night. 

School doesn’t start for another two weeks, and there’s not much to do now that Christmas is past. It is not like Andrew has _friends._ It’s just Cass. Richard is still up in Oakland, finishing up the sale of the other house and organizing his work contacts. Andrew doesn’t really know how long it is going to take and does not particularly care. 

But Cass seems to think that Andrew isn’t getting out enough or somes shit like that. 

“Sweetpea, why do you go and explore the neighborhood, see if there are any kids your age to make friends with?” 

Andrew has never made a friend in his life and he highly doubts he is about to start now, but Drake has been leering at him all day so Andrew nods and puts on his coat and goes outside. 

It’s chilly, but the California winter is mild and Andrew is not too bothered. He doesn’t go far, just around back. The property is backed by a forest. Andrew walks far enough into the woods that if Cass glances out she won’t be able to see him. He finds a spot where the sun is arching through the trees and sits down, back against a solid trunk. 

He zones out. 

It is one of those things he does that people always tell him is weird. That he can just sit down and stare into space and not move for hours, not need to entertain himself. Cass had once asked him if he was daydreaming. He had said yes, but it was a lie. Andrew does not think of anything. He just is. Sometimes he feels like he is outside of his own body, looking in on a fleshy machine. Analyzing it for flaws. Maybe if he looks at himself hard enough he can find the cracks, find what makes him broken, what makes other people whole. 

He thinks he is dreaming, for a moment, when he sees the eyes. They look exactly like the ones in his dreams, ice blue and cruel. The sight of them startle Andrew into a flinch, but when he takes a second look he realizes they are attached to a boy who is crouching down in front of him, trying to get his attention. His hair a brownish red, his nose slightly upturned. He’s wearing the rattiest sneakers Andrew has ever seen.

“Hey, hey you,” the boy’s voice is high. Unlike Andrew he hasn’t quite hit the part of puberty that has him sounding gravely and squeaky in turns. 

Andrew blinks at him, “What.” 

“I was wonderin’ if you were alive. You were just staring. I thought maybe you were a zombie.” 

Andrew scoffs and rolls his eyes, “I was just sitting. Leave me alone.” 

The kid rolls back on his heels, “Nah, I don’t think I will. I’m bored. You should hang out with me.”

Andrew uses the trunk of the tree to push himself to his feet, “Fuck no. Go the fuck away.” 

Andrew does not want friends. The last thing he wanted when he went out at Cass’s suggestion was to actually _find_ someone. 

“Andrew.” 

At the sound of his name Andrew abruptly stops. He turns. The kid is standing where Andrew left him. The sun is lower now, so his face is shaded. His eyes almost seem to glow. 

“How the fuck do you know my name?” Andrew tries not to sound alarmed but it is hard not to. There is no fucking reason this kid should know him. 

“Your mom saw me runnin’ and said I should come back here and talk to you. She said you wanted to make friends. Guess she was wrong.” 

“She’s not my fucking mom,” Drake has made that very clear. Cass and her good intentions, making shit difficult. He just wants everyone to leave him alone. 

“Whatever, guess you can go back to your creepy house and stay friendless and sad then. It’s not my problem.” It’s meant to be barbed but Andrew doesn’t give a shit. Except— 

“You think it is creepy too?” 

The kid widens his eyes dramatically, “It’s the fuckin’ creepiest place for miles. I dunno know why your family bought it, it’s been empty for like— a hundred years or some shit.” 

“She said we are going to renovate it and then sell it.” 

“Well good luck, I guess, I thought they were gonna demolish it years ago but they never did.” 

The kid does not appear to have any more useful information. Andrew has given him enough attention. 

“Whatever,” he says as he starts to walk away again. 

There’s the sound of rapid footsteps and then suddenly the kid is beside him. He is a little taller than Andrew, but fucking everybody is taller than Andrew but that does not mean much. 

“But really, we should hang out. I’m like, super bored all the time. My dad’s always busy and kicks me out of the house. How old are you? You’re like, super tiny.” 

Andrew reigns in a groan of frustration. The only reason he has not hit the kid is because he hasn’t tried to touch Andrew yet, which is enough of a rarity that Andrew is willing to let him fuck off without violence. He keeps walking and does not respond. 

“My name is Neil, by the way, I’m thirteen but my birthday is really soon.”

Andrew snarls, “And what, you don’t have any friends to invite to your sad birthday party so now you’re bothering me?” 

The kid sounds confused when he responds, “I’m not having a party?” 

God this kid is probably just as fucked as Andrew. “I am fourteen. And I do not want to ‘make friends’, or ‘hang out’,” Andrew uses air quotes, “Or anything like that. So leave me alone now, or I will punch you.” 

The kid finally stops dogging Andrew’s heels. 

“Fine. Go be miserable alone I guess.” 

The house comes into view through the trees. Andrew gets out a parting remark before breaking out into the yard. 

“Thanks, I will be.” 

He turns to check that the boy is not still following him. 

There is no one there. 

— 

That night it happens again. Andrew is in the bathroom, running a razor over his forearm and watching red bloom against the wasteland of his arms. It is hypnotizing, the way his skin splits, the way the blood runs in tiny rivers, drips onto the floor into little pools. He makes another cut. It hurts, a sting overlaying a deep ache. It is just enough to distract him from the pain between his thighs. He makes another. 

He hears the creak of floorboards, and sees a shadow under the door. 

He waits. The silence is loud in his ears. He can hear the soft plops of blood hitting the floor. It is the only sound in the world. 

Scraaaaaaaaaaaatch. 

Like one long claw, being dragged straight down the center of the door by someone waiting, just outside. 

Something. 

Scraaaaaaaaatch.

Andrew is trembling. His arm hurts and all of a sudden it doesn’t feel so good. Suddenly he is painfully aware of every single ache in his body. The way the handle of the cabinets is pressed uncomfortably into his back. The painful click of his throat as he swallows. The bruises on his thighs and the uncomfortable spiking heat in his lower back and the sting sting sting sting of his forearms.

His voice comes out raw and painful as he mutters, “Leave me alone.” 

And then it speaks. 

It is not Drake. 

It sounds like nothing. It sounds like everything. It sounds like looking down into an abyss and knowing that you are going to jump. 

_Andrew,_ it says, _will you come home?_

He manages to speak louder now, “Whatever the fuck you are, leave me the fuck alone.” 

This is stupid. Ghosts are not real. Haunted houses do not exist. Andrew is probably— delirious from blood loss and hallucinating or some shit. He should not be making noise. Cass will hear and then she will come check on him and find him on the bathroom floor covered in blood and she will scream and call the hospital and then there will be questions and she will give him up and he will be alone alone alone. 

Almost as if it can hear his thoughts it says, _if you come home you will never be alone again_

What does that even mean, come home? 

Andrew is struck by a sudden vision. It feels like a dream, like a memory, but it is not something that he has ever seen before. It is himself, he is filling the bathtub with water, he is climbing inside fully clothed, he is taking his razors and the water is turning red red red and overflowing out of the tub and running through the house red red red everything is red and rushing except for ice blue eyes and he sees Neil, the stupid fucking kid he saw in the forest except he is bleeding and his hair is red red red and his face is melted like wax and when he sees Andrew he smiles like razor wire and holds out his hands, his hands covered in warped skin and bloody stripes and when he opens his mouth there is blood in his teeth and he says _andrew come home aren’t you so tired? aren’t you so tired of being alone? it would be so easy all you have to do is keep doing what you are already doing andrew come on come home come HOME COME HOME COME HO—_

Andrew gasps awake. His heart is beating in his chest like he’s just run a marathon. He is in his bed. It is morning. There is a knocking on his door. 

“Andrew sweetie! Wake up! It’s almost noon. I can’t let you sleep the day away.” 

It takes a moment for Andrew to realize he is here, he is alive, he did not crawl into a bathtub full of blood and end himself last night. 

Cass opens the door. Andrew bolts upright at the intrusion. He must look like a mess because Cass’s expression immediately warps into one of concern.

“Oh baby, are you alright?” 

Andrew is still panting but he manages to mutter, “I uh, just had a bad dream.” 

Her brow furrows in concern. Before Andrew knows it she’s bending down and pressing her lips to his forehead. He nearly flinches away but pushes it down at the last moment. The kiss feels cool and comforting against his sweaty skin. 

When she pulls back she says, “Well you are a little warm, but I don’t think you have a fever.” 

Andrew sounds more angry than he means to when he says, “I told you it was just a stupid dream.” His voice cracks embarrassingly in the middle of the sentence. 

She chuckles a little and ruffles his hair. “Well I’m sure getting up and moving around will help with that. I’ll make you breakfast.” 

Later, when he is sitting in front of scrambled eggs and a sliced fruit, and is doggedly separating everything on his plate before he starts eating, Cass says, “By the way I’m going to have to drive up to Oakland this afternoon. Something came up with the house. I’ll spend a couple nights up there and then I’ll be back down again. You and Drake will get to have some bonding time before he gets deployed next month, isn’t that lovely?” 

Dread sinks into Andrew’s stomach like a slow acting poison. He mumbles, “Alright.” and refuses to look up from his plate. 

A couple days. Alone with Drake. In this creepy fucking house. Stellar. 

Cass continues, “Did you manage to meet anyone when I sent you out yesterday? You never said.” 

It’s an innocuous enough statement but suddenly Andrew is suspicious. 

“There was a boy. I thought you saw him come by.” 

Cass sounds a little confused, “No, I didn’t see anyone. But I’m glad you met someone! You should tell me about him!” 

Cass hadn’t seen the boy. Neil. So Neil had been lying. 

How had he known Andrew’s name? 

— 

The news of Cass leaving means that Andrew has more immediate problems than some creepy dreams and a weird kid who lied about how he knew Andrew’s name. 

Maybe the dream was right and he should just kill himself. It would save him a hell of a lot of pain. 

But no— he just has to wait a couple more weeks and Drake will be out on deployment for at least another year and a half and maybe by then Andrew will be tall enough that Drake won’t bother anymore. And if not then— he’ll figure it out then. 

So that leaves him facing at least three miserable days alone at Drake’s mercy. 

Andrew thinks maybe he’s handled worse but suddenly he can’t think of what it might have been. 

The first night they watch a movie. Andrew doesn’t pay attention to what it is. Drake makes Andrew sit on his lap. For the longest time he doesn’t even do anything. Just runs his hands up and down Andrew’s waist. 

It feels grosser because of how casual and nonsexual it is. Like Andrew is his fucking _boyfriend._ Like Drake gives half a shit about him. 

When Drake starts touching him it is almost a relief. The pain feels better than the false sense of relaxation Drake was trying to lull him into. 

The dreams that night are worse. He is standing on the roof, he is looking down down down and there is a gaping maw gazing back at him. He can make out the pearly outlines of teeth the size of gravestones, a slimy tongue, a hungry throat. 

_Fuck you,_ he finds himself thinking spitefully, _you can’t fucking have me. Drake can’t have me either. I am no one’s and nothing. You cannot trap me because I am already trapped and I will weather this just as I have everything else._

“You have a choice, Andrew,” says a voice. Andrew turns. It’s Neil, the boy from the woods. His face is melted again. “Somebody needs to stay. Pick.” 

Andrew feels thorns sink into his heart. 

“You want me to stay here. With you. You are the one doing this.” 

Neil laughs, and it is a sharp, unhappy sound. 

“I’m not doing anythin’. I don’t control this anymore than you do.” 

Then who does? 

“Things that are abandoned decay. They start to rot. On the insides, where you can’t see it, they fester and grow resentful, until one day you wake up to find blood on the walls.” 

The house?

“Look inside yourself, Andrew. You are decaying too.” 

— 

This time when Andrew wakes it is to the heavy pressure of Drake against his back, one of his arms weighing Andrew down, holding him like he is a toy. Drake is sleeping. Andrew feels like this is one of those fairy tales he used to despise as a child. Where he must crawl out of the arms of a sleeping giant and steal his gold so he can escape down a beanstalk and find his happily ever after. 

But there is no gold, and there will be no happy endings here. 

He extricates himself from Drake’s arms nonetheless. He hurts, he hurts all over and there is blood dried between his thighs and he can feel scabs ripping as he stands. 

He sits on the floor of the shower for a very long time, letting the screech of the plumbing drown out his thoughts.

After, he peeks his head back into Drake’s room and finds that Drake is still sleeping. Probably tuckered himself out being a fucking mega-freak last night. Whatever. Andrew isn’t going to wake him up. 

He goes onto the back porch. 

Neil is standing there. 

Andrew only manages not to jump by sheer force of will. 

“Andrew.”

“Fucking hell, you will not leave me alone in my dreams and you continue to pester me when I am awake. What is the point?”

“The house is lonely, Andrew. I’m lonely too. We’ve been waitin’ a long time.” His eyes are that of a predators, inhuman and cruel. 

“Well you can wait a little bit fucking longer.” 

Neil tilts his head slightly as he stares at Andrew, “No, I don’t think we will. Make a decision Andrew, before somethin’ else makes it for you.” 

“Fuck off,” Andrew raises his fist at Neil, but suddenly Neil is gone. It is not quite like vanishing, more like suddenly realizing that the person you thought was standing next to you is really not there at all. 

He goes back inside. 

_make a decision before something else makes it for you_

What does that mean? 

He thinks about teeth. He thinks about cages. He thinks about decay and abandonment and pain. He thinks about how the house always seems to respond to him when he is at his most miserable and alone. 

He thinks about two more days alone with Drake. 

He thinks about the ways humans eat at each other. They ways they destroy each other. He thinks about a boy with melting cheeks and sliced open arms and an accent that sounds just slightly too old timey to feel real. 

He thinks about a letter, hidden in the back of his journal where no one has found it. 

He is drawn out of his musings by a heavy hand landing on his shoulder. Drake is awake. 

Andrew stops thinking. 

Later. Later. It is always later he is always tending to some hurt, covering some pain, cleaning some stain or cutting out his own rot. It is always later that he must remember how to exist again. He is so fucking tired of later. He is so tired of never getting a full night’s sleep. He is tired of feeling like prey, of feeling like a victim, feeling like a doll— pulled in all different directions because all people want is to take and take and take. 

Later he takes a butcher knife out of the drawer and stares at it while Drake sleeps. 

Later he dials nine-one-one on the landline and tells them _my brother tried to rape me, I had to stop him I didn’t know what else to do._

Later the cops will arrive and find the body, find Andrew covered in blood, eyes dry and empty. 

Later the hospital will confirm what Andrew has known about himself for years. 

Later will be Cass’s shocked face, Richard’s pale drawn one. 

Later he will move all the way to South Carolina to look into the mirror and see a boy who is bruised and angry the same way he is. 

He will grow up. He will not forget about the house that wanted to eat him. He will remember what rotting from the inside feels like. He will remember it when he swerves the car into oncoming traffic, when he locks his brother in the bathroom and listens to him vomit for three days straight, when he beats four men nearly to death, and when he is let off with barely a slap on the wrist because _victims of such terrible things can’t be held accountable._

His brother, his twin, will grow older and go to college and meet a girl and fall in love and Andrew will be abandoned and left behind to rot and decay and grow resentful and empty inside. 

He is okay with that. He does not want to swallow anyone else up in his emptiness. He is not that kind of cruel. 

Going back to the house is easy. It still stands, empty and askew on the hillside. 

Andrew has done research. In the 1910’s it belonged to a famous mobster. He’d moved out there to avoid arrest back on the east coast. He had only one child. A boy with red hair and blue eyes. He was thirteen when the butcher burned half his face off and chopped him into bits. 

The house is far older than that. 

Andrew pulls up in his Maserati, cans of gasoline piled up in his trunk. 

As he walks up to the house there is a boy standing on the porch, hair gleaming like fire in the dying sun. He is no longer taller than Andrew, but he is not shorter by much. 

His smile is like razor wire. 

Andrew burns. 

— 

_when a house is both hungry and awake, every room becomes a mouth_

**Author's Note:**

> happy halloween!! feel free to come chat on my tumblr @ sinistercacophony 
> 
> comments and kudos are appreciated always <3


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